1. Field of the Invention
To prevent arcing and damage to the primary contacts of a pole-top, air-break switch upon opening thereof, there is commonly employed a device which provides a shunt across the switch during the period of disengagement of such primary contacts to open the switch; such device--known as a quick-break attachment--includes, in one form, a flexible and resilient whip on one switch part, and which whip is engaged with a catch on another switch part to establish the shunt upon initial relative separating movement of said switch parts to disengage said primary contacts; the whip being bowed and hence spring-loaded in response to such movement, and--upon continuance thereof--snaps free or quick-breaks from the catch and terminates the shunt.
The known quick-break attachments have encountered certain problems, among them the fact that the speed of the break of the whip from the catch was not sufficiently fast to prevent the propagation of a damaging arc, and at times the whip, after breaking from the catch, rebounded and made undesirable arcing contact with said catch. The present invention was conceived in a successful effort to provide an improved quick-break attachment, and which, in particular, is not subject to the above-mentioned problems.